There, we got it out of the way. When you read the headline, of course an image of a tiny Cold War-era hatchback popped into your head. We bet you also shuddered at the thought of a Pontiac Aztek.
We love to poke fun at failure, and no failure made a punchline better than the Yugo. We found that out while talking with Jason Vuic, author of The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History. Vuic was aware that the Yugo fell far short of being a good car, but what truly amazed him was how many people who had never driven a Yugo knew just how bad it was. In failure, it became a wild viral marketing success.
Not all cars rose to level of infamy embodied by the Yugo. To paraphrase Shakespeare, some cars were born awful while others had awfulness thrust upon them. Some automotive atrocities were the result of automakers trying something new and falling far short of the mark, while other cars failed from a lack of effort. Still others were perfectly adequate cars but came to represent a regrettable moment in time.
Here we display all three kinds of auto-trocities, highlighting famous failures and digging deep to dredge up detritus better off forgotten. Yes, we know there are many, many more automotive atrocities and this list only scratches the surface of the heap. You’ll have a chance to list your favorite heaps tomorrow, so stay tuned.
Above: Peel Trident 1965-1966
Famous from appearances on Top Gear and Monster Garage, the Peel Trident was a “shopping car” built on the Isle of Man. Along with the bubblelicious BMW Isetta and the fiberglass Reliant Robin, the Trident was ridiculed for its small size and three wheels.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Singer-songwriter James Taylor says he doesn’t see the resemblance, but he was pitched – without success – to play the role of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in the new film.
Taylor told a packed audience at the National Press Club on Friday that Oscar-winning musician John Williams – who composed the soundtrack for “Lincoln” – had pushed for Taylor to play the lead role in Steven Spielberg‘s new film.
The role of Lincoln in the historical drama ultimately went to Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis.
“John wanted me to play that part. He actually stood up for me there and suggested me at one point,” said Taylor, 64, adding, “It was never going to happen.”
The “Fire and Rain” singer, who has no professional acting experience, said he was flattered that some people thought Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Lincoln reminded them of him. But he did not see much resemblance aside from the fact that they were “tall and somewhat skinny.”
“He doesn’t look like me to me, but I live in here, so I’m apt to notice the difference,” Taylor said.
British-born actor Day-Lewis, who already has two Oscars, is seen as a front runner to take home another golden statuette at the Academy Awards in February.
Taylor said he had no ambitions to go into acting after what he called “an interesting ride” of a performance career in which he essentially played himself.
“This is fine. I’ve spent my life being myself for a living,” said Taylor, a five-time Grammy Award winner.
“There are performers who develop and assume a character that they then play for the public. But I don’t know anyone who is as much themselves publicly for a living as I am,” he said.
Taylor and his third wife, Kim Taylor, campaigned actively for then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008 and again in 2012. The singer performed in Washington on Thursday evening at the 90th annual lighting of the National Christmas Tree, presided over this year by President Obama and his family.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Lisa Shumaker)
The U.S. economy added 146,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, the lowest since December 2008. The government said Superstorm Sandy had only a minimal effect on the figures.
The Labor Department's report on Friday offered a mixed picture for the economy.
Hiring remained steady during the storm and in the face of looming tax increases. But the government said employers added 49,000 fewer jobs in October and September than initially estimated.
And the unemployment rate fell to a four-year low in November from 7.9 percent in October mostly because more people stopped looking for work and weren't counted as unemployed.
There were signs that the storm disrupted economic activity. Construction employment dropped 20,000. And weather prevented 369,000 people from getting to work — the most in almost two years. They were still counted as employed.
Stock futures jumped after the report. Dow Jones industrial average futures were down 20 points in the minutes before the report came out at 8:30 a.m., and just after were up 70 points.
As money moved into stocks, it moved out of safer bonds. The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note, which moves opposite the price, rose to 1.63 percent from 1.58 percent just before the report.
Since July, the economy has added an average of 158,000 jobs a month. That's a modest pickup from 146,000 in the first six months of the year.
The increase suggests employers are not yet delaying hiring decisions because of the “fiscal cliff.” That's the combination of sharp tax increases and spending cuts that are set to take effect next year without a budget deal.
Retailers added 53,000 positions while temporary help companies added 18,000 and education and healthcare also gained 18,000.
Auto manufacturers added nearly 10,000 jobs.
Still, overall manufacturing jobs fell 7,000. That was pushed down by a loss of 12,000 jobs in food manufacturing that likely reflects the layoff of workers at Hostess.
Sandy forced restaurants, retailers and other businesses to close in late October and early November in 24 states, particularly in the Northeast.
The U.S. grew at a solid 2.7 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter. But many economists say growth is slowing to a 1.5 percent rate in the October-December quarter, largely because of the storm and threat of the fiscal cliff. That's not enough growth to lower the unemployment rate.
The storm held back consumer spending and income, which drive economic growth. Consumer spending declined in October and work interruptions caused by Sandy reduced wages and salaries that month by about $18 billion at an annual rate, the government said.
Still, many say economic growth could accelerate next year if the fiscal cliff is avoided. The economy is also expected to get a boost from efforts to rebuild in the Northeast after the storm.
How far ahead of the musical curve was musician Kevin Shields’ revolutionary production for legendary My Bloody Valentine albums Isn’t Anything and Loveless? Let’s just say that words at the time couldn’t do the trick.
“In an interview when Loveless came out [in 1991], I said it will be years before anyone is talking about this record on the level that I’m hearing it,” the visionary Shields explained in a four-hour interview for Hypnagogia Films’ so-called shoegaze documentary Beautiful Noise, now nearing the end of its Kickstarter campaign for crowdsourced funding. “Everyone was like, ‘That’s really arrogant!’ And yet in retrospective, it wasn’t that I was right, but I wasn’t wrong either.”
Directed by Eric Green, Beautiful Noise explores the singular, influential sonics of immersive yet disorienting bands like My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins and The Jesus and Mary Chain, as well as newer but similarly inspired experimenters like Autolux. With interviews with Shields, The Cure’s Robert Smith, Trent Reznor and many more in the can and over half of its hoped-for $75,000 funding on the books, Green is crossing his fingers that Kickstarter comes through before Beautiful Noise‘s Dec. 15 deadline, so that he and his hypnagogic crew can finally deliver their musical labor of love.
That could be just in time for My Bloody Valentine’s long-awaited follow-up to Loveless, which Shields plans to independently release before the end of the year on MBV’s official site.
Because now is the time that foundational full-lengths like Loveless are more fully appreciated. Back then, the best the music press could offer to describe its spiraling sonics was the dismissive catch-all shoegaze, which has since widened to include disparate bands once left outside of that condescending terminology.
“Funnily enough, we’re written about in a much more accurate way now than at the time, when it was just underwater guitar, millions of overdubs and mumbled vocals,” Shields said.
Scott Thill covers pop, culture, tech, politics, econ, the environment and more for Wired, AlterNet, Filter, Huffington Post and others. You can sample his collected spiels at his site, Morphizm.
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Benedict Cumberbatch carries a galactic grudge in the new trailer for “Star Trek Into Darkness.”
The first look at what’s next for Capt. Kirk and crew is an explosion-rich one, but the best special effect on display in the J.J. Abrams-directed sequel is Cumberbatch‘s Shakespearean-infused threats of global devastation.
“You think your world is safe,” he says in a voice dripping with Coriolanus-like fury. “It is an illusion, a comforting lie told to protect you. Enjoy these final moments of peace. For I have returned to have my vengeance.”
Cue scenes of mayhem and pyrotechnics.
It’s not clear who Cumberbatch – best known his for take on the legendary Baker Street sleuth on the British television show “Sherlock” – will play (Khan?), but he evidently isn’t a fan of Starfleet.
Most of the cast of 2009′s well-received “Star Trek” reboot are returning, including Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Mr. Spock. “Star Trek Into Darkness” hits theaters on May 17, 2013.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has reversed his support for a controversial deportation program, announcing Wednesday that he will not comply with federal requests to detain suspected illegal immigrants arrested in low-level crimes.
The sheriff's dramatic turnaround came a day after California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris issued a legal directive advising that compliance with the requests is discretionary, not mandatory.
Until then, Baca had insisted that he would honor the requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold some defendants for up to 48 hours. He was an outspoken opponent of the Trust Act, which would have required California law enforcement officials to disregard the requests in many cases, declaring that he would defy the measure if it passed.
Baca has also been sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for allegedly denying bail to immigration detainees.
Now, he appears ready to do more or less what was proposed in the Trust Act, which was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September.
The change of heart from Baca, a Republican in a heavily Democratic county, comes as GOP leaders are warming to immigration reform in an effort to counteract dismal support from Latino voters. Last month, Baca closed the 1,100-bed Mira Loma immigration detention center, which earned his agency up to $154 a day for each detainee, after contract negotiations with ICE broke down.
None of those considerations were at play, a Baca spokesman said. The sheriff's reversal was prompted solely by Harris' opinion, which contradicted advice from Los Angeles County attorneys that the requests were mandatory, said the spokesman, Steve Whitmore.
Baca joins Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, who announced a similar policy in October. San Francisco and Santa Clara counties also decline to honor some types of ICE holds.
The change may not take effect until early next year. Baca's staff must first flesh out the details of the new policy, which would apply only to those arrested in misdemeanors who do not have significant criminal records. The department would still honor federal detention requests for those accused of serious or violent crimes.
Under the federal Secure Communities program, all arrestees' fingerprints are sent to immigration officials, who flag suspected illegal immigrants and request that they be held for up to 48 hours until transfer to federal custody.
Secure Communities has come under fire for ensnaring minor offenders when its stated purpose is to deport dangerous criminals and repeat immigration violators. According to federal statistics, fewer than half of those deported in Los Angeles County since the program's inception in 2008 have committed felonies or multiple misdemeanors. Critics say immigrants have become fearful of cooperating with police.
"The last thing we want is victims to be frightened to come forward," Whitmore said.
ICE officials said Baca's new policy is in line with federal priorities and will affect only a "very small number" of cases.
"The identification and removal of criminal offenders and other public safety threats is U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's highest enforcement priority," the agency said in a statement.
Immigrant rights advocates called Baca's announcement a long overdue breakthrough.
"This will send a very strong message nationwide that in ... the most multicultural city in the nation, the sheriff is there to protect and to serve, not to deport," said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, communications director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
Supporters of the Trust Act, which was reintroduced in modified form by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) earlier this week, said it is still necessary because detention policies should not vary by jurisdiction.
"It's imperative that California have a uniform statewide policy. It's essential that people not receive different treatment under the law as they're driving up and down the 5," said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
Baca has not taken a position on the new Trust Act, which is likely to evolve during the legislative process, Whitmore said.
Going out for a run used to just be about lacing up your sneakers. Now when you head out, you can feel like you’re drowning in tech: GPS watches, sports bands, sweat-proof earbuds, smartphone apps with cadence-matching playlists. And that’s before we even talk about what’s on your feet.
But we wouldn’t subject ourselves to this mountain of gadgetry if it didn’t really help. As our goals become more minute and more ambitious, training “by feel” doesn’t cut it anymore — you need the hard performance data and sophisticated tracking abilities only things like wearable sensors can provide.
Wahoo Fitness, a longtime favorite among plugged-in fitness freaks, has recently introduced a few new activity-monitoring gadgets. I tested the company’s latest real-time pace monitor, called the Stride sensor ($55), as well as a couple of heart-rate monitors. I also tested the Wahoo Key, a $60 dongle for your iPhone that links up to your sensors and passes the data along to your favorite fitness-tracking apps.
I started by setting up the Wahoo Key, which plugs into an iPhone’s 30-pin dock connector. According to Wahoo, iPhone 5 users will need to use a Lightning adapter until the company makes a new design. Setup is pretty easy, but the app guides you through the process, making the instruction manual (which is annoyingly reliant on QR codes) mostly redundant. Once the key was plugged in, I had the Wahoo Fitness app running smoothly in less than a minute. Links to download all the major compatible apps, such as MapMyRun and RunKeeper, were displayed as well.
Although a “keychain” is available for the Wahoo Key, it’s small enough to lose easily. Also, I was nervous about how it protrudes awkwardly from the end of my phone, and I bet it would snap right off if I dropped the phone.
Next, I strapped on the Stride Sensor, which you attach to your shoelaces. I clipped the sensor onto my shoe and it stayed comfortably in place through an entire half-marathon.
The sensor tracks your running pace using a pair of 3-axis accelerometers. It easily links to the phone (via the Wahoo Key), where all the data is displayed and recorded. There’s a slight delay in pace monitoring of only a few seconds, which is totally acceptable. Also, Wahoo lets you program your height to make its readings more accurate. It only lets you go up to 7 feet, so very few runners are going to feel left out.
The collected data could be very helpful to runners trying to teach themselves what various paces feel like. The stats of distance, time and pace are all displayed on the iPhone in large enough text to make them easy readable at the gym or mid-race.
Not content to stop there, I also strapped on a couple of the company’s heart-rate devices: the Wahoo Blue HR Heart Rate Strap ($80), and the Wahoo Soft Heart Rate Strap ($50). The biggest difference between them is that the Blue HR is Bluetooth-enabled (hello, iPhone 5 people!) while the other strap requires the Wahoo Key, in all of its last-generation technological glory.
Of all the goodies Wahoo currently offers, the ability to monitor your heart rate and have your BPM displayed on your phone is the most useful. Target heart rates are essential to a well-structured training program, so this is critical data, and Wahoo delivers it with great accuracy.
According to the Wahoo website, the Blue HR will connect to the iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, the latest-generation iPads and the iPad mini. Be warned: The sensors only talk to each other for a distance of up to 10 feet, and carrying an iPad around the gym could get awkward. I could see a paired iPad being useful on a treadmill, or if you work with a trainer who’s holding one while hovering nearby.
The straps that hold the heart-rate monitors against your chest are also comfortable and shouldn’t bother runners (or cyclists) on even their longer workouts. Wahoo also offers an armband to carry your iPhone while you sweat ($30). The longest run I completed while testing the band was 4 miles long, and the neoprene never chaffed or got uncomfortable, but it kept my iPhone 4 very stable.
For athletes who devour tech like GU on mile 10, Wahoo Fitness is a well-known name. If you’re just getting into tracking your runs or bike rides, the company’s gear is a good place to start. I’d recommend looking at the Bluetooth stuff first, since it works with the newer devices via wireless pairing, and you can avoid the annoyance of the protruding 30-pin dongle.
WIRED Real-time pace monitoring is valuable for undertaking tempo runs. Heart-rate sensors give the number junkies the accuracy and reporting they crave. Gear is comfortable and keeps everything in place without fuss.
TIRED Everything is iOS-centric. Wahoo Key sticks out too far, and doesn’t work with newer Apple devices unless you have an adapter. The Wahoo Key could easily be lost. Uploading music to the Wahoo app isn’t worth the hassle.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – “Zero Dark Thirty,” filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow‘s action thriller about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, was named best film of 2012 on Wednesday by the National Board of Review – the second accolade for the movie in one week.
Bigelow was named best director and Jessica Chastain, who plays the starring role of a young CIA officer pursuing bin Laden, was named best actress by the NBR.
Bradley Cooper took home best actor honors for his portrayal of a bipolar, former teacher in the film “Silver Linings Playbook.”
” ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ is a masterful film,” NBR President Annie Schulhof said in a statement. “Kathryn Bigelow takes the viewer inside a definitive moment of our time in a visceral and unique way. It is exciting, provocative and deeply emotional.”
Wednesday’s awards for the Hollywood treatment of the decade-long operation to hunt and kill bin Laden, based on firsthand accounts, boosts the prospects for the movie to win an Oscar in February. The film, not yet publicly released, also took the top award from the New York Film Critics Circle on Monday.
Leonardo DiCaprio won best supporting actor from the NBR for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s new slavery era drama, “Django Unchained,” while Ann Dowd took the best supporting actress honors for her role in “Compliance,” as a fast-food restaurant manager duped by a prank caller scam.
The NBR, a 100 year-old U.S.-based group of movie industry watchers and film professionals, gave its original screenplay award to Rian Johnson for “Looper,” and adapted screenplay to David O. Russell for “Silver linings Playbook.”
“HOBBIT,” “LIFE OF PI” OVERLOOKED
“Les Miserables,” the first big movie adaptation of the popular stage musical featuring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway was named best ensemble, and the group gave its best animated feature prize to “Wreck-It-Ralph.”
Each year the board also issues a list of top 10 movies, which this year besides Bigelow’s film included Ben Affleck’s Iran hostage thriller “Argo,” “Django Unchained,” “Les Miserables,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” and “Looper.”
“Lincoln,” Steven Spielberg’s biopic of President Abraham Lincoln, the mystical indie film “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” Gus van Sant’s fracking drama “Promised Land,” and coming of age film “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” rounded out the list.
Absent from the list were some films that had been touted for honors ahead of awards season, including Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit,” Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom,” indie film “The Sessions” starring Helen Hunt, and Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi.”
In other categories, NBR gave its best documentary award to “Searching for Sugarman,” and chose Austrian director Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” as best foreign language film.
Child-actress Quvenzhane Wallis from “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” and “The Impossible” actor Tom Holland each won awards for breakthrough performances.
Benh Zeitlin received the award for best debut director for “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” while documentary “Central Park Five” and drama “Promised Land” were both honored with the Freedom of Expression award.
The National Board of Review was formed in New York in 1909 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting movies as an art form and entertainment.
(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Jill Serjeant and Leslie Gevirtz)
Faced with tight budgets, states have spent less on tobacco prevention over the past two years than in any period since the national tobacco settlement in 1998, despite record high revenues from the settlement and tobacco taxes, according to a report to be released on Thursday.
Paul J. Richards/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
State antismoking spending is the lowest since the 1998 national tobacco settlement.
States are on track to collect a record $25.7 billion in tobacco taxes and settlement money in the current fiscal year, but they are set to spend less than 2 percent of that on prevention, according to the report, by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which compiles the revenue data annually. The figures come from state appropriations for the fiscal year ending in June.
The settlement awarded states an estimated $246 billion over its first 25 years. It gave states complete discretion over the money, and many use it for programs unrelated to tobacco or to plug budget holes. Public health experts say it lacks a mechanism for ensuring that some portion of the money is set aside for tobacco prevention and cessation programs.
“There weren’t even gums, let alone teeth,” Timothy McAfee, the director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said, referring to the allocation of funds for tobacco prevention and cessation in the terms of the settlement.
Spending on tobacco prevention peaked in 2002 at $749 million, 63 percent above the level this year. After six years of declines, spending ticked up again in 2008, only to fall by 36 percent during the recession, the report said.
Tobacco use is the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 Americans every year, according to the C.D.C.
The report did not count federal money for smoking prevention, which Vince Willmore, the vice president for communications at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, estimated to be about $522 million for the past four fiscal years. The sum — about $130 million a year — was not enough to bring spending back to earlier levels.
The $500 million a year that states spend on tobacco prevention is a tiny fraction of the $8 billion a year that tobacco companies spend to market their products, according to a Federal Trade Commission report in September.
Nationally, 19 percent of adults smoke, down from over 40 percent in 1965. But rates remain high for less-educated Americans. Twenty-seven percent of Americans with only a high school diploma smoke, compared with just 8 percent of those with a college degree or higher, according to C.D.C. data from 2010. The highest rate — 34 percent — was among black men who did not graduate from high school.
“Smoking used to be the rich man’s habit,” said Danny McGoldrick, the vice president for research at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, “and now it’s decidedly a poor person’s behavior.”
Aggressive antismoking programs are the main tools that cities and states have to reach the demographic groups in which smoking rates are the highest, making money to finance them even more critical, Mr. McGoldrick said.
The decline in spending comes amid growing certainty among public health officials that antismoking programs, like help lines and counseling, actually work. California went from having a smoking rate above the national average 20 years ago to having the second-lowest rate in the country after modest but consistent spending on programs that help people quit and prevent children from starting, Dr. McAfee said.
An analysis by Washington State, cited in the report, found that it saved $5 in tobacco-related hospitalization costs for every $1 spent during the first 10 years of its program.
Budget cuts have eviscerated some of the most effective tobacco prevention programs, the report said. This year, state financing for North Carolina’s program has been eliminated. Washington State’s program has been cut by about 90 percent in recent years, and for the third year in a row, Ohio has not allocated any state money for what was once a successful program, the report said.
For the first time in years, Apple will manufacture computers in the United States, the chief executive of Apple, Timothy D. Cook, said in interviews with NBC and Bloomberg Businessweek.
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
Timothy D. Cook, Apple's chief executive, introduced new products in October, including a thinner iMac.
The iEconomy
Articles in this series are examining challenges posed by increasingly globalized high-tech industries.
Explore More in the Series »
“Next year, we will do one of our existing Mac lines in the United States,” he said in an interview to be broadcast Thursday on “Rock Center With Brian Williams” on NBC.
Apple, the biggest company in the world by market value, moved its manufacturing to Asia in the late 1990s. As an icon of American technology success and innovation, the California-based company has been criticized in recent years for outsourcing jobs abroad.
“I don’t think we have a responsibility to create a certain kind of job,” Mr. Cook said in the Businessweek interview. “But I think we do have a responsibility to create jobs.”
The company plans to spend $100 million on the American manufacturing in 2013, according to the interviews, a small fraction of its overall factory investments and an even tinier portion of its available cash.
In the interviews, Mr. Cook said the company would work with partners and that the manufacturing would be more than just the final assembly of parts. He noted that parts of the company’s ubiquitous iPhone, including the “engine” and the glass screen, were already made in America.
Over the last few years, sales of the iPhone, iPod and iPad have overwhelmed Apple’s line of Macinotsh computers, the basis of the company’s early business. Revenue from the iPhone alone made up 48 percent of the company’s total revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30.
But as recently as October, Apple introduced a new, thinner iMac, the product that pioneered the technique of building the computer innards in the flat screen.
Mr. Cook did not say in the interviews where in the United States the new manufacturing would occur. But he did defend Apple’s track record in American hiring.
“When you back up and look at Apple’s effect on job creation in the United States, we estimate that we’ve created more than 600,000 jobs now,” Mr. Cook told Businessweek. Those jobs include positions at partners and suppliers.
An Apple spokesman could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Foxconn Technology, which manufactures more than 40 percent of the world’s electronics, is one of Apple’s main overseas manufacturing contractors. Based in Taiwan, Foxconn is China’s largest private employer, with 1.2 million workers, and it has come under intense scrutiny over working conditions inside its factories.
In March, Foxconn pledged to sharply curtail the number of working hours and significantly increase wages. The announcement was a response to a far-ranging inspection by the Fair Labor Association, a monitoring group that found widespread problems — including numerous instances where Foxconn violated Chinese law and industry codes of conduct.
Apple, which recently joined the labor association, had asked the group to investigate plants manufacturing iPhones, iPads and other devices. A growing outcry over conditions at overseas factories prompted protests and petitions, and several labor rights organizations started scrutinizing Apple’s suppliers.
Wahoo Fitness, a longtime favorite among plugged-in fitness freaks, has recently introduced a few new activity-monitoring gadgets. I tested the company’s latest real-time pace monitor, called the Stride sensor ($55), as well as a couple of heart-rate monitors. I also tested the Wahoo Key, a $60 dongle for your iPhone that links up to your sensors and passes the data along to your favorite fitness-tracking apps.
